Hobos and woodpiles

My husband is watching a movie on television and the dishwasher is loaded, waiting for me to push the button. We had a nice dinner and a bowl of freshly popped popcorn, and are going to make out the shopping list soon. How fast the week has gone!
We are having cooler weather, and our wood supply still hasn't come. The dealer is having trouble with his truck. Our situation reminds me of the huge woodpile we used to have stacked up in front of our little house in Wisconsin when I was growing up there. I have somewhere a picture of my father posing beside the split wood, ax in hand, showing off his huge supply of wood. Actually, he seldom split wood. The job was usually done by my brothers or various hobos who showed up at the house, willing to work for food. Some of them split the wood easily, others labored mightily. It all depends on the aim of the ax and the speed with which it descends. When we moved into this house, there were several cords of wood stacked in the driveway and in the woodshed. It took us a couple of years to burn it all.
One never sees hobos anymore. During the depression, they came along fairly often. Since our farm was only about a mile from the train tracks and the main road, they found it easy enough to pay us a call. My mother always managed to scratch up enough food to give them a decent meal, and if they were clean and interesting, they got to eat on the kitchen porch. Other-wise, it was out on the steps. We never felt particularly threatened by any of them, they were just a fact of life in those hard times.
I listened to Coast-To-Coast radio last night, and the topic of conversation was the book labeled "The Forgotten Man," detailing the many aspects of the depression of the thirties. The forgotten man apparently was Herbert Hoover, and I will certainly try to get a copy of the book to read. I really don't think we are headed for another time such as that, but you never know.
time to go and make out the shopping list. Goodnight and keep in touch.